


The Summer Job

by junko



Series: Sixty-Nine Shades of Gray [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 13:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Academy's summer break is approaching and Renji needs a job and a place to stay.  Kira has a surprising offer...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Summer Job

**Author's Note:**

> OMG, I've launched deeply into AU now (and, depending on your perspective, may also be massively OOC.)

The day was too hot to sit in the student cafeteria, so Renji, Kira and Rukia took their lunch break in the shade of a maple tree in the quad. Renji laid in the grass, letting the breeze cool the sweat from his skin. He was exhausted after zanjutsu practice.

“Oi, Rukia. What are you doing over break?” Renji asked, nudging her thigh with the toe of his sandal. Rukia sat cross-legged on the ground, and picked through her bento box with chopsticks. “Have you found a job yet? A place to stay?”

Rukia just smiled coyly. “I might have something really big, but I can’t say yet.”

“Mmmm, sounds very mysterious,” Renji said, propping up on his elbows to look at her. She ignored him and instead picked through the box as though sorting her food. He glanced over at where Kira sat, delicately nibbling his rice. “What about you, Kira? You got a home to go to?”

“I do, but I’m renting a place in the First District for the summer.”

“Wow, nice for some,” Renji said. Finally sitting all the way up, he sighed. “If I don’t get my ass in gear, I might end up sleeping in the library stacks. I’ve got a month to find a job and a place to stay.”

“I might be able to help you with both,” Kira said. Though, strangely, something about the offer made him blush a little.

“Oh?”

Kira caught Renji’s eye and gave a meaningful look at Rukia. Apparently, whatever was on offer it wasn’t for mixed company. Curious. So, Renji took the hint and changed the subject to an upcoming exam. He’d really rather have talked about the possible job, especially since he knew how left out Rukia always felt when the two of them went on about their special classes.

But, she seemed preoccupied today, anyway, and left them after a short time, hardly having touched her lunch.

After they said their goodbyes to her, Kira shifted to sit closer to Renji. He looked around as if worried about eavesdroppers. Finally, he leaned in close and said quietly, “The place I work for has an opening. I think you’d be perfect, especially if you wore your hair down to the interview.”

 

#

“A host club?!”

Now Renji understood why Kira had been so cagey with the details, particularly in front of Rukia. He pushed a stray bit of hair away from his face to peer at his friend, “You sly dog, Kira. I’d never have guessed.”

They stood outside, on the street, staring up at the sign. Like so many places in the upper districts, it looked expensive and daunting to Renji. There was a small, manicured garden just beyond a low wall, and, for the sort of place it was, it had a surprisingly open and friendly look. However, the business was clearly closed at the moment, even though the sun had set several hours ago.

Kira blushed a little in the lantern light, and Renji could see how he might make a lot of tips with that cute, innocent boy look. “You can’t tell anyone,” he insisted seriously. “Especially if you get the job and we work together.”

“Don’t worry,” Renji said. “No matter what, I won’t tell. But you’ve got to answer me this: why? Why do you have a job at all? Don’t you have some kind of trust fund?”

“I do,” Kira said. “I just… like this work, that’s all.”

 _Oh, my._ “So you like flirting with older rich women for money?”

Kira looked away. “No, that’s going to be _your_ job, Renji. Come on, let’s go in.”

 

#

Kira’s boss was ready to hire Renji on the spot when she saw his red hair and heard his accent. She almost fainted with glee when she found out about his tattoos and willingness to flirt with both women and men.

“You can work both sides of the bar!” she exclaimed happily. She was a fast-talking woman, who pitched her voice like a little girl. Similarly, her hair was done up in pig-tails and she dressed in a sparkling hot pink kimono. She constantly flipped her bangs back as she talked and gestured wildly with her hands. “This is good because some nights, the host side is totally dead. That’s why your predecessor quit. He couldn’t make enough money, and the poor lamb couldn’t pass convincingly.” She clapped her hands. “Lovely! It’s been too long since we had a strong, butch man as a hostess. And the boys will die for an Inuzuri roughneck! So deliciously dangerous!”

The only hang-up was Renji’s hesitation at having to start out in debt to the club. “But,” the boss explained, “You simply must look sharp. You certainly can’t wear your school uniform. We tried that and nearly got shut down by the Thirteen Court Guard for misrepresenting them, if you can imagine! Unless you have something really fine of your own, we’ll simply have to purchase clothes for you.”

Eventually, Renji capitulated. The prospect of the money was too great.

Kira was waiting nervously outside the office door when Renji came out. He brightened, however, when he saw the boss smile. “Kira,” she said to him, “Bonus for finding this one! You can train him in tonight.”

Pointing at his nose, Kira stammered, “Me? But… but isn’t he on the other side?”

“No, he does both! Oh, didn’t you know?” she looked between the two friends, momentarily chagrined. Then she shrugged and laughed, “Your friend is bi, honey. Surprise!”

  
#

“It’s kind of a _big_ surprise,” Kira said as they walked back to campus to get a brief nap before starting a late shift. “I hope you aren’t lying about it either. The last guy that tried that got fired for pissing off the punters.”

“I thought he quit.”

“It was one of those ‘you can’t fire me, I quit’ moments, and, anyway, it wasn’t like he could exactly work from the hospital ward.” At Renji’s horrified, questioning look, Kira nodded. “Some guys REALLY don’t like being led on. That’s why I hope you’re not just thinking you can fake it.”

“Aren’t you always faking a little? What if the customer isn’t hot?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Kira said. “Of course, you have to… use your imagination sometimes. I’m talking about ‘afters,’ you know, _dates_.”

Renji ran his fingers through his hair, unused to having it falling in his face. “Are you expected to go on a lot of those?”

Kira shrugged. “It’s where the real money is. And, if word gets around that you won’t ever put out, people stop asking for you to be their host.”

Renji considered this for a long moment. He twisted back his hair and tied it up. They walked through the front gates to Academy, nodding the guard at the door. “You get to pick, though, right? I don’t have to go home with anyone who asks, do I?”

“No, of course not,” Kira said, his voice hushed, clearly uncomfortable talking about this now that they were back on campus.

“Then I’m good.”

“Really?” Kira raised a thin blond eyebrow at Renji, “You’re full of surprises.”

 

#

“No,” Renji said later that night. “I’m thinking you’re the winner in the surprise department, Kira.”

Kira was dressed as a woman—not just girlishly, completely. He had on a long-sleeved woman’s baby-blue kimono, decorated with white egrets, and a wide, white obi tied in a gigantic bow in the back. He’d done something to his hair to give it curls, and pearls dripped from ears and a hairpiece. Simple, subtle make-up added fullness to his thin lips and brought out the brilliant blue of his eyes. A matching fan hid his bright red cheeks.

Renji had to admit, his friend made an amazing-looking woman. “Is it weird I think you’re kind of hot?”

“Yes,” Kira said grumpily, still fanning himself furiously. “You promised you wouldn’t tell, right?”

Who would believe him? Renji shrugged, “Right.”

“Well,” Kira tisked, disapprovingly, and pointed to Renji’s chest with a snap of his fan. "She certainly has you showing off skin."

Renji looked down at what the head hostess had picked out for him and nodded. The kimono was open almost to his waistline. A lot of ink was visible. “Yeah, I think I’m supposed to be going with the slutty, sleazy persona.”

Kira sighed and shook his head. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

 

#

 

The only real difference between the host club and a regular bar was the menu and the fact that you chose which door you entered based on your sexual preference. Renji would be expected to pour drinks and serve food just like any waiter or bartender, except, of course, with a little extra flirtation, if requested.

Kira told him that it would probably be a few weeks before anyone actually ordered _Renji_ from the menu, but, when that happened, he’d sit with the customer at their table for the night and entertain them more personally. Pour drinks, fetch food, and be funny – or whatever they were hoping to get.

“Which begs the question,” Renji interrupted, with another glance down at his revealing outfit. “If they pick the tattooed Inuzuri punk, what are they expecting, exactly? Am I supposed to be threatening? And should I be worried that that’s a turn on?”

Kira tapped the closed fan against his lips and considered. “I think you’re supposed to be scandalously rude.”

“Oh, yeah,” Renji nodded. “I could see that.”

 

#

As Kira predicted, Renji’s first few weeks working were mostly boring, hard work that left him with aching feet in the morning. The club’s manager had him serving a lot of tables on both sides of the bar so that word would spread about the new boy. Plus, it took Renji a little while not to take all the nervous looks the wrong way, and, instead of feeling demoralized, see the wide eyes as his cue to make some crude, lascivious comment and leave them twittering.

It was quite a switch from the language and behavior required at Academy. Renji found he had to be much more careful in class. Luckily, the impulse to shout some funny, rude observation was tempered by the costume change. But, he had to work extra hard remember to use proper sentence construction, rather than easily sliding back into the contracted Inuzuri style and slang. If he’d been hoping to lose his accent, host club nights weren’t helping.

On the other hand, it surprised Renji how quickly he came to think of Kira as two separate people. He was never tempted to tease Kira or talk to him about work while they were in their school uniforms; it was like there was a girl-Kira and a boy-Kira and never the twain shall meet.

After a great deal of pressurizing from the head hostess, Renji did agree to take some flyers from the club and secret them into the hands of students, especially the ones likely to throw all their money stupidly and liberally at some pretty thing. Renji was very judicious about who he approached, however. It would not do his reputation any good getting caught soliciting for a host club, and it might even get him expelled if it caused too much disruption or was seen as behavior “unbecoming an officer.”

While on the lookout for someone to give the last of his cards to, Renji spotted Shūhei sitting alone, as usual. This time he found him in the library. He was tucked into one of Renji’s favorite corners--a bench seat sandwiched between two overflowing bookshelves. Behind it was a huge window, open to a view of the quad. Shūhei was sitting with his knees up and his back resting against one of the shelves. His book balanced casually against his legs. His black hair stuck up in unruly spikes and the wounds on his face were becoming deep scars.

Impulse pushed Renji several steps forward before he hesitated. They hadn’t really seen each other since the drunken kiss on the rooftop.

Shūhei must have sensed Renji’s eyes on him, because he looked up. Recognizing Renji, he paled a little and then feigned a sudden, deep interest in his reading.

Renji realized he should probably read that reaction as ‘he’s not that into you,’ but, for some reason, maybe all his recent work at the club, it had the opposite effect. It gave him the courage to walk the rest of the distance and stand over Shūhei boldly.

“Hey,” he said.

Shūhei glanced up, briefly pinning Renji with deep gray eyes. Then, he went back to his book.

“Yeah,” Renji continued as if Shūhei had returned a pleasant greeting, “so, turns out I know a place where you could find the kind of people you’re looking for. You know, people like you and me.”

“Oi,” Shūhei sat up suddenly and slammed his book closed. “What about that interaction said ‘talk to me’?”

Renji gave Shūhei a long, pitying look before saying, “I know you’re lonely."

At that, Shūhei’s face grew angry and tight. His eyes scanned the room as though making sure they weren’t being overheard, and then he hissed, “Listen, I was drunk--”

Renji interrupted him with a shrug, “Sure.” Retrieving the flyer from the inner pocket of his uniform shirt, he dropped it on the seat beside Shūhei. “Whatever. Maybe I’ll see you some night.”

He left before Shūhei could punch him, strangle him or both.

 


End file.
